The present invention concerns lockers for the temporary storage of equipment such as skis and ski poles.
Typically skiers leave their skis and poles in an unsecured manner when taking a respite from skiing. The equipment is often left standing in the snow or leaning against a rack or building.
A recognized and growing problem at ski resorts is the theft of skis. In view of skiing growing in popularity and the high cost of ski equipment the theft of ski equipment amounts to several millions of dollars each year.
Attempts to remedy the problem include the checking of skis with a resort attendant which incurs the drawbacks of adequate storage area within a resort building, manpower effort to operate the ski storage concession including the handling of money for ski storage, the difficulty in checking skis and retrieving same at peak use periods. Skiers typically are adverse to queueing up for the checking in and retrieving of skis.
Additional efforts to remedy the problem have resulted in mechanical, money actuated locking systems where the skier, on deposit of a certain sum, will have the use of a lockable rack. The problems of handling small change and keys with gloved or cold hands renders these types of racks impractical. The risk of key loss is also present.
Presently, it may be said the majority of skiers at a day use resort forsake the checking and lockable racks for one reason or another and simply leave their skis and poles unattended during breaks in their skiing activity which not infrequently results in the theft of same.